Twisted - Esme Devlin Page 0,36

locked. The ones that do open are often too dark inside to see anything, and so I continue on and try to make a mental note to come back when it’s light outside.

But then I find one that isn’t dark.

There is a large fire on the back wall of the room, casting shadows on each of the walls opposite. The walls are lined floor to ceiling with books, and in the center sits some chairs. There is a dark wooden desk that spans almost the width of the large room, and on the other side a matching one, though this appears to be set up for meetings and such with many chairs around it.

With the room seemingly unoccupied, I step inside and let the door fall closed behind me.

His office, maybe?

I look around, touching things at random and trying to figure out where to start. This is dangerous, of course. He said I had free rein of the house, but I don’t think he meant to include snooping around his office as part of that.

But I suspect if there are answers to be had, then this is the place to find them. Actually, not answers. I still need to figure out the questions.

His desk is covered in paperwork, and that seems like the logical place to start. My fingers brush over the papers, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing. Many of them aren’t in English—in fact, they’re not even using the lettering system. There are maps and numbers. So many numbers.

Maps.

I pick one up, searching desperately for something familiar to me. The carnival? This place? What is this place even called?

“Enjoying yourself?”

My head snaps up as I drop the map back on the desk. Baron looms in the doorway like a walking nightmare, the size and height of him almost filling it.

I clear my throat. “You said I could explore as I wished.”

He chuckles and steps into the room. “I did indeed, hence the question—are you enjoying yourself?”

I watch him as he walks slowly toward me, unsure what the correct answer is. Perhaps there is none. “No. I can’t make any sense of it.”

Baron slumps down in one of the chairs around the fireplace, angling his body toward me. “Do you think I would allow it if you could?”

“You said you would answer my questions,” I remind him.

“I said I’d consider it. I even gave you the implements with which to write them down, and yet you have not asked any. Come, sit with me.”

I hesitate. Everything with Baron always feels like a trick.

“What exactly do you think I’m going to do to you here, that I couldn’t come and do over there?”

The man makes a reasonable argument.

I cross the room toward him and am about to take the seat opposite when he tuts at me.

“I think you’ll find I asked you to sit with me and not across from me.”

He spreads his legs and leans his arms around the back of his chair, clearly enjoying my discomfort at the thought of it.

“Must you test my patience on every little thing?” he says. “Is it because we have no audience tonight? Do not make me regret being honest with you, Sapphire. It is a simple request, and I’d advise you to choose your battles.”

With a sigh, I close the space between us and perch my bottom on his knee.

His arms quickly come around, pulling me in closer to him. His masked face nuzzles my neck and he takes a deep breath. “There,” he says. “Is this so impossibly horrible for you?”

“No,” I say. Probably a lie. The man terrifies me.

“Then why do you fight me over it?”

I can’t explain to him that tonight feels different from last night. Last night, it was easy to get inside the castle in my head and convince myself he wasn’t getting in. But that was because I reached a point where that was the only choice I had left.

It’s not so easy to do that tonight, and I’m not sure why.

Maybe because he is not losing his temper.

So instead, I give him the thing I suspect he wants to hear. “Because you scare me.”

“Hmm. So instead of doing what the scary thing says, you try to do the opposite? That doesn’t sound like fear to me, my sweet girl. That sounds like defiance.”

“Do you enjoy my defiance?” I ask, trying to somehow get ahead of him.

He laughs at that. “Sometimes. When I have the patience for it. Just as I suspect you